Since there is not package available in standard Etch repositories, packages needs to be retrieved and installed by “Etch Backports” repositories as follows:

• wget http://www.backports.org/debian/pool/main/f/fuse/fuse-utils_2.7.1-2~bpo40+1_i386.deb
• wget http://www.backports.org/debian/pool/main/f/fuse/libfuse2_2.7.1-2~bpo40+1_i386.deb
• wget http://www.backports.org/debian/pool/main/n/ntfs-3g/libntfs-3g2_1.516-1~bpo.1_i386.deb
• wget http://www.backports.org/debian/pool/main/n/ntfs-3g/ntfs-3g_1.516-1~bpo.1_i386.deb

Then, set’em up in your Debian using following commands:

• dpkg -i libfuse2_2.7.1-2~bpo40+1_i386.deb
• dpkg -i fuse-utils_2.7.1-2~bpo40+1_i386.deb
• dpkg -i libntfs-3g2_1.516-1~bpo.1_i386.deb
• dpkg -i ntfs-3g_1.516-1~bpo.1_i386.deb

Then test mounting it using command:

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 (replace /dev/sda1 with your device) /<mounting path>

It might come up with following message if your kernel is still the standard one of Etch version… should be harmless if you’re just mounting an NTFS formatted external drive as I’m trying to…
WARNING: Deficient Linux kernel detected. Some driver features are
not available (swap file on NTFS, boot from NTFS by LILO), and
unmount is not safe unless it’s made sure the ntfs-3g process
naturally terminates after calling ‘umount’. If you wish this
message to disappear then you should upgrade to at least kernel
version 2.6.20, or request help from your distribution to fix
the kernel problem. The below web page has more information:

http://ntfs-3g.org/support.html#fuse26